HV/Series/Episode/ Work by: Ginna Allison · Jesse Boggs · Jonathan Mitchell
Hearing Voices from NPR®
078 Shopping for Santa: A Season’s Greeting
Host: Barrett Golding of Hearing Voices
Airs week of: 2009-12-09
“Shopping for Santa” (52:00 mp3):
Holiday spirits and communal consumption:
We go shopping at “City X,” a sound-rich history of America’s malls and their creator, architect Victor Gruen (PRX | Radio Lab | 3rd Coast).
The producer, at age 2, sings “Silent Night” with her Dad. A woman homesteader remembers brutal North Dakota winters in the 1920s. Blues legend Brownie McGhee describes homemade Christmas presents. Adi Gevins’ father reveals that all New York Santas gain entry through the fire escape. And an Oroville grandfather uses a snow machine to make his plastic Christmas tree even more realistic. Produced for the series A Gathering of Days, with support from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and KQED-San Francisco. Thanks to Adi Gevins, psychiatrist Ray Posie, John Langstaff: creator of Christmas Revels, and the late Peter Allison for the family recordings.
Eli Boggs, age 3, sings “We Wish You a Merry Christmas”. His dad, Jesse Boggs, plays guitar.
Hearing Voices wishes you lotsa Holidays Spirits and Prosperos Anos Nuevos.
Images from Coke Lore. Ads painted by Haddon Sundblom
1942 above, 1951 below:
